What will the winter bring?\u00a0 Birders frequently ask this question each fall.\u00a0 We know we can count on seeing our resident birds this winter like Black-capped Chickadees, American Crows and Hairy Woodpeckers.\u00a0 We also know that most species of migratory breeding birds are gone now but will be back next summer.\u00a0 You can count on seeing Eastern Phoebes, House Wrens and Yellow Warblers come the summer.\u00a0 Passage migrants (birds which breed to our north and winter to our south) seldom linger in Maine for the winter.\u00a0 Snow Geese and Semipalmated Sandpipers are two examples of Maine passage migrants.<\/p>\n
The last category of birds, winter migrants, inspires excitement in birders.\u00a0 These birds breed to our north, some as far north as the arctic tundra. Some of our winter migrants like American Tree Sparrows are expected every year.\u00a0 But many winter migrants are unpredictable; in some years, they may be common and in other years scarcer than hen\u2019s teeth.\u00a0 These birds include Snowy Owls, Bohemian Waxwings and a suite of finches commonly called the northern finches.<\/p>\n
Why the variability?\u00a0 The answer is quite simply food availability.\u00a0 Snowy Owls are perfectly capable of making it through a winter on the arctic tundra if the lemming population is sufficient to provide food.\u00a0 Similarly, Common Redpolls can survive an arctic winter given sufficient birch seeds.<\/p>\n
However, lemming abundance, birch and conifer seed production, and soft fruit production vary from year to year.\u00a0 When the requisite food is scarce, birds must migrate south to find food.\u00a0 The result is an influx of northern birds.\u00a0 Who is not thrilled by flocks of Common Redpolls at our feeders or Bohemian Waxwings in our fruit trees?<\/p>\n
Ecologists refer to these incursions of birds as irruptions.\u00a0 An irruption is movement into a particular place, just the opposite of movement out in an eruption.\u00a0 We can think of Common Redpolls erupting from northerly areas when food is not available and irrupting into Maine where birch seeds may be more plentiful.<\/p>\n
This winter is shaping up to be an irruption year for Snowy Owls.\u00a0 Over 20 of these magnificent raptors have been sighted in Maine already this winter, mostly along the coast.\u00a0 On December 1, two birders in Newfoundland saw 138 on an all-day birding trip.\u00a0 Keep those eyes peeled!<\/p>\n
A couple of flocks of Bohemian Waxwing were seen in the past week. Look for these fruit-eaters at apple orchards or in stands of fruit-bearing trees or shrubs.<\/p>\n
The irruptive finches show weak correlations in their abundances because they rely on different types of tree seeds for their sustenance.\u00a0 Ron Pittaway prepares predictions of irruptions each fall based on the production of various species of trees in the vast stretches of boreal forest to our north.<\/p>\n
Pittaway reports that mountain ash produced an abundant berry crop to the north of us this fall.\u00a0 Therefore, we are not likely to see very many Pine Grosbeaks (fruit-eating finches) this year.<\/p>\n
Birch and alder seeds are abundant in boreal forests to our north.\u00a0 We should not expect a major irruption of Common Redpolls.<\/p>\n
Red Crossbills prefer to extract seeds from the cones of Red Pine and White Pine. \u00a0Red Pine cone production is fair to good this year and White Pine production is poor. \u00a0Look for occasional Red Crossbills in Maine where ornamental conifers or pines are laden with cones.<\/p>\n
White-winged Crossbills prefer spruce cones.\u00a0 Good to excellent spruce production is seen in the boreal forest, extending down into northern New England and the Adirondacks.\u00a0 These crossbills are likely to be broadly dispersed so we should not expect high populations this winter.<\/p>\n
Pine Siskins with their small bills rely heavily on hemlock and spruce cones. \u00a0Fair numbers of siskins are expected in northern New England this winter.<\/p>\n
[First published on December 10, 2013]<\/p>\n\n
What will the winter bring?\u00a0 Birders frequently ask this question each fall.\u00a0 We know we can count on seeing our resident birds this winter like Black-capped Chickadees, American Crows and Hairy Woodpeckers.\u00a0 We also know that most species of migratory breeding birds are gone now but will be back next summer.\u00a0 You can count on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[429],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":632,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631\/revisions\/632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/mainebirds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}